Our Programme
All meetings take place in Room G35, Senate House South Block (and online), except Saturday 17 January 2026, which will be held in Chancellor’s Hall, and Saturday 7 February 2026, which will be exclusively online. The Society thanks the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, and the Department of Greek and Latin, University College London, for their continued support.
Those wishing to attend our online meetings are asked to fill out a request form. Click below to access the form. A Zoom link will then be sent out a short time before the talk.
Our Programme 2026 – 2027
All are welcome at all our meetings.
Saturday 10 October 2026, 2.30 pm: Room 261, Senate House
Dr Nicolò Campodonico (University College London)
‘Virgil’s Collaborators: Completing the Incomplete Lines in the Aeneid’
Saturday 28 November 2026, 2.30 pm: Room 261, Senate House
Dr Alex Hardie (University of Edinburgh)
‘P. Alfenus Varus in the Eclogues’
Saturday 16 January 2027, 2.30 pm: Room 261, Senate House
Dr Hannah-Marie Chidwick (University of Bristol)
‘Preparing the fighting body in Virgil’s Aeneid’
Saturday 6 March 2027, 2.30 pm: Room 261, Senate House
Dr Chimène Bateman (Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford)
‘Refugees as Foreign Founders: From the Aeneid to the Old French Roman d’Eneas’
Saturday 15 May (AGM Day: all-day event): Chancellor’s Hall, Senate House
11 for 11.15 am
Professor A.J. Woodman (University of Virginia)
‘The first two words of the Aeneid’
Lunch break
2.15: Reading from Virgil (tbc)
2.30: AGM
3.00: Presidential Address:
Caroline Lawrence
‘Introducing Virgil to Children’
The Society thanks the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London for their continued support.
How to Join the Society
The best way to join is to click the ‘Join’ button below. It is also possible to sign up via a membership form at one of our meetings or by writing to Jill Kilsby at: treasurer@virgilsociety.org.uk
Membership costs 15 GBP per year and this entitles members to the twice-a-year newsletter and a copy of the Proceedings of the Virgil Society, which is normally published every three years.
The Society is a registered charity.
You may also wish to attend our meetings online. Click below to register your interest.
About Us
The Virgil Society was founded in 1943, and its first President, the poet T.S. Eliot, delivered What is a Classic? as his Presidential Address in the following year. The purpose of the Society was and remains to unite all those who cherish the central educational tradition of Western Europe. Of that tradition Virgil is the symbol. Membership is open to all those who are in sympathy, whether they read Latin or not.
There are normally five or six meetings each year in London, held on Saturday afternoons in Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU.
The speakers include both amateur and professional scholars, many of them Virgilians of international repute. Lectures are followed by refreshments, giving an opportunity to meet the speaker and other members of the Society.
Most lectures are published in full in the Proceedings of the Virgil Society. There is also a Members’ Newsletter, which appears twice a year.
President 2026-2027
Caroline Lawrence
Vice-Presidents
Egil Kraggerud
A.C. Dionisotti
William Fitzgerald
Richard Jenkyns
Philip Hardie
Treasurer and Membership Secretary
Jill Kilsby
Meetings Secretaries (alternate years)
Bruce Gibson
Luke Houghton
Editor of Proceedings
Luke Houghton
Editor of the Newsletter
Naoko Yamagata
Student Representative and Schools Liaison
Alice Bolland
Council of the Society
J. Barnes, A. Bolland, K. Bowhay, A.C. Dionisotti, B. Gibson, L. Houghton, J. Kilsby, F. Mac Góráin, Bobby Xinyue, N. Yamagata, O. Thicknesse
Webmaster
Cristian Ispir
Proceedings of the Virgil Society
All issues of the Proceedings of the Virgil Society are now available online, except the most recent issue, PVS 30.
Click below to access the resources:
For enquiries about Proceedings, please contact the editor, Luke Houghton
Other Sites of Interest
www.thelatinlibrary.com/verg.html
Texts of Virgil from The Latin Library
www.virgil.org
David Wilson-Okamura’s bibliography of the Virgilian tradition
www.vergil.clarku.edu.bibliog1.htm
Niklas Holzberg’s comprehensive Aeneid bibliography
ics.sas.ac.uk
The Institute of Classical Studies is a national and international research institute in the languages, literature, history, art, archaeology and philosophy of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. It is a member institute of the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.
vergil.classics.upenn.edu/vergil/index.php/
The Vergil Project is a resource for students, teachers, and readers of Vergil’s Aeneid. It offers an on-line hypertext linked to interpretive materials of various kinds. These include basic information about grammar, syntax, and diction; several commentaries; an apparatus criticus; help with scansion; and other resources.
Aeneid in JSTOR
A tool to find articles in JSTOR that quote or refer to specific passages of the Aeneid
Pentakontaetia
A history of the first 50 years of the Virgil Society, published in 1993 by the late Dennis Blandford.